Data transmission is an important part of many integrated circuits and systems having integrated circuits. Data is typically communicated with an integrated circuit by way of an input/output port. Data may be communicated in a system in different formats and according to a variety of data communication protocols. However, input/output circuits can significantly affect the performance of an integrated circuit device. Accordingly, memory access circuits are an important part of integrated circuit devices.
Advanced application processor systems operate in a virtual memory address domain, and may use a Memory Management Unit (MMU) to perform virtual-to-physical address mapping. The MMU is typically built into the processor unit and is not shared by other bus-mastering peripherals such as a direct memory access (DMA) device. Thus most DMA devices operate in the physical address space domain, and require extra software management for partitioning a virtual address range block into multiple contiguous physical address range blocks and for handling each such block as a separate task.
Accordingly, circuits and methods providing improved access to memory devices is desirable.